Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Staying One Step Ahead Of Criminal Hackers

In our efforts to stay one step ahead of the global criminal hacker cabal, my colleagues and I in the ethical hacker community try to approach our craft like our adversaries. To paraphrase Carl Spackler, we know that, in order to conquer the hacker, we have to learn to think like hackers. We’ve got to get inside the hacker’s pelt and crawl around. When you do that, you develop a begrudging respect for them.

In popular culture, however, criminal hackers can become mythologized, not unlike the way the bank robbers of old were. Despite their chosen professions, the likes of John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson and Ma Barker were sometimes regarded as modern-day Robin Hoods. They were the little guys taking on the rich and powerful with daring and panache. Even when caught, they’d often revel in the attention. When asked why he robbed banks, the infamous “Slick” Willie Sutton supposedly quipped, “Because that’s where the money is.”

That may have been true in the first half of the last century, but not anymore.